By Kris Leonhardt
Editor-in-chief
GREEN BAY – On Nov. 27, the Johnsonville Tailgate Village was a site rich in Christmas spirit as the Lambeau venue played host to “Police Lights of Christmas.”
The event was started in 2016 by Q90FM to benefit low-income and hurting or homeless members of the community during the Christmas season.
“It started out small — just a few departments that were a part of this program back in 2016 — and here we are tonight. It’s our eighth year with 70 police departments here,” said Katie Connell, community outreach director for Q90FM.
“Honestly, it started out with just a small ministry idea where we wanted to collect the gift cards, and we as a ministry team wanted to go out and help people in need. Our only problem is we didn’t know where to find the people in need and how to help them. And it happened at the same exact time that the officers down in Dallas in 2016, five of them were ambushed and killed, and we just knew in that moment that we needed to remove ourselves from this and put the light on our officers.
“So, we decided instead of handing out these gift cards, let’s give them to the officers. They do these random acts of kindness all day long. They open up their own wallets. Let’s give them another tool on their belt where they can help people in need that they come in contact with on patrol.”
In addition to the gift cards, law enforcement officers also packed backpacks filled with essentials such as hats, gloves and socks to distribute in the community.
“It helps build trust with your community, where they realize we’re people as well. No matter what jurisdiction you’re an officer in, you can’t be every place all of the time so you need to have good rapport with your community,” Green Bay Police Lieutenant Steve Mahoney stated.
“The purpose of this is us giving back to the community.”
Law enforcement agencies from a good portion of the state will benefit from the program, which distributed 1,000 backpacks along with $185,000 of gift cards earned through fundraisers during the year and purchased through school script programs.
“This is all of the way as far north as Vilas County, Minocqua at the top of the state, all the way down to Dodge County, Portage and everybody in between. So, pretty much every sheriff’s department in northcentral, southcentral and northeast Wisconsin,” Connell explained.
“I actually have emails from six departments right now that are seeing this event and they’re not a part of it, and they’re asking how to be a part of it next year, so it’s going to keep growing.
To add to the event, police agencies were treated with an appearance from Green Bay Packers Quarterback Jordan Love.
“We knew there was a surprise coming. The coordinators here at Lambeau said that they definitely want to ‘show our officers some love. I tried not to read too much into it, but here he is,” Connell said.
Love is no stranger to the challenges that law enforcement faces.
His father, Orbin, was an officer with the Bakersfield Police Department and his mother worked for the California Highway Patrol.
The event ended with a “lights and sirens send off” at the end of the night to mark another season of giving.
For more information on the program, visit https://lightsofchristmas.us.